Guy Walters is the author of nine books, which include four wartime thrillers and the critically acclaimed histories Hunting Evil and Berlin Games. Frustrated at the enormous amount of junk history around, Guy sees it as his personal mission to wage war on ignorance and misconceptions about the past. Guy is currently working on a new history of the Great Escape, and is also studying for his PhD at Newcastle University. His website is www.guywalters.com and is @guywalters on Twitter.

Can Iranian mullet-wearers be granted asylum?

It's hard not to appear a bigot if one questions the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court to allow the appeals of two gay men from Cameroon and Iran against being refused asylum in the UK. As I understand it, under the Refugee Convention Act, applicants do not have to be granted asylum if their situations in their homelands are 'reasonably tolerable'. As a result, the Supreme Court justices ruled that covering up their sexuality would be to deny the men a 'fundamental right', and that their lives would indeed be intolerable. I think this is the correct decision, but it does surely provide an opportunity for others to claim mendaciously that they too are persecuted homosexuals in order to be granted asylum.

However, I wonder whether we will soon be seeing an influx of young Iranian men with mullets and ponytails, who will be fleeing Iran on the grounds that by being forced to adopt 'Islamic' haircuts. Is it 'intolerable' to be forced to cut one's hair in a certain way? It probably is. If the government made me sport a mullet, I'd be off.